Thank You from Shakespeare Solved!

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I can not thank you all enough.

There are many reasons why I wanted to write this blog.

I wanted to advertise my versions of Hamlet, Richard III and The Merchant of Venice.

I also wanted to write in greater detail about some of the moments in Shakespeare’s life, moments that I couldn’t dwell on too much in my published versions of the plays.

But perhaps the most important reason I decided to write this blog was to make Shakespeare more accessible -- to see him as a real human being who lived a very unusual life and who triumphed in his art, even when his life was full of tragedies.

If we don’t understand who he was and how he lived, then we can not fully appreciate his plays.

If we don’t understand that he lived in a time of great fear and death -- due to the plague -- then we can’t appreciate why his plays are so great.

If we don’t understand that he lived under very repressive monarchs -- Queen Elizabeth and King James -- then we can’t appreciate how well he wrote for those monarchs but also for the crowds.

The very fact that he survived, and indeed thrived, during these politically volatile times is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries about him.

As you read my versions of the plays, you will begin to see Shakespeare as flesh and blood human being who fought a long and hard battle against the powerful nobility and monarchy -- not with a sword, but with a pen!

His greatest weapons were the words, the characters, and the plays he wrote!

Most of us are not fighting the kinds of battles he fought.

But all of us fight battles in our lives.

Most of us thankfully don’t live with the hardships -- plague, political repression, threat of war -- that Shakespeare faced.

But all of us have hardships of our own to face.

When Shakespeare’s friend and enemy (his frenemy) the famous playwright Christopher Marlowe died -- or was he murdered by the government? -- Shakespeare wrote his first masterpiece, Richard III, as a way to manage his grief and celebrate his fellow playwright.

After his 11-year-old son Hamnet died, Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice as a way to manage the grief. The play itself is actually a very bawdy comedy -- but in the center of it all is a man who has lost his daughter.

After his great friend and patron, the Earl of Essex, led a rebellion against the Queen, and was executed -- in the same year that Shakespeare’s father died -- Shakespeare wrote his masterpiece Hamlet, to remember his close friend and his dear father.

Most of our lives are not as difficult as Shakespeare’s.

But we can all find inspiration in the story of Shakespeare’s life. I look forward to writing more about him, and his plays, as I continue to work on new versions of his plays.I am at work on Othello, and I can't wait to share it with you this year!Cheers,David B. Schajer